The women's soccer team fell victim to another Dartmouth casualty Friday when it lost a disappointing 2-1 game to Yale in New Haven.
The women, now 4-2-1, will most likely drop out of national rankings as a result of the loss, but more importantly the Big Green have put themselves in a difficult position in the Ivy League.
Dartmouth, now 1-1 in the League, will have to win the remaining Ivy games if the Big Green hopes to even share a part of this year's title.
But the Big Green do not plan to dwell on the past, nor do they want to look to far ahead in the future. Instead, Dartmouth hopes to just get back on track after a disappointing weekend loss.
"Our work rate is just down right now," Jenna Kurowski '97 said. "We need to pick that up. Our intensity needs to be picked up a notch."
In Friday's night game against the Bulldogs, Dartmouth faced a team filled with the intensity the Big Green just flat out lacked.
"They were all over us from the beginning," Kurowski said. "They were on every single ball."
The Bulldog intensity also proved to emerge as physical play, too. Yale was given three yellow cards during the game for illegal procedures. As a result Melissa McBean '97 had to have stitches and co-Captain Holly Thomas '97 suffered a separated shoulder.
"They were going to do whatever they had to do to get the ball," Kurowski said. "They really didn't play."
Thomas, who continued to play throughout the game despite her injury, had been moved up to a midfield position to fill in for missing starter and co-Captain Kate Andrews '96, who was injured in a game last week.
The Bulldogs were able to expose the Big Green defense early when Jill Rubenstein scored just 6:28 into the game. The 1-0 Yale lead, inspired the Bulldogs as their intensity proved to be somewhat startling to the Big Green.
"It really shouldn't have been, but the atmosphere we were in was obviously against us," Kurowski said. "They weren't expected to win, so they had nothing to lose. They were really psyched to play us."
Yale would improve its lead to 2-0 at the 77:38 mark when Rubenstein shot in another Bulldog goal.
Having trailed the entire game, the Big Green did show some spark shortly after, but unfortunately the inspired play simply came too late.
"I think we played about eight minutes of the 90," Coach Steve Swanson said. "There is no question we were not ready to play. We realize that though. You just can't do that in this league and expect to win."
The Big Green scored their first goal with approximately five minutes to go in the game when McBean headed in a pass from Betsy Dobbin '98. Following the goal, Dartmouth dominated Yale's part of the field.
"The problem is that it is taking us until we score a goal to play with the intensity we need," Kurowski said. "We need to take that last five minutes and extend it into the whole game. Right now we just don't know what we can do to get that intensity from the beginning."
After a two day break, the Big Green will look to find that missing element of their game the next two days in practice before they take on number three nationally ranked Hartford.
"I think we all have to look inside ourselves," Swanson said. "Hopefully we've learned a valuable lesson. I'm confident this team will respond though."
With over a month still to go in the season though, the Dartmouth women recognize that dwelling on what has happened will get them nowhere.
"We have to focus on the future," Thomas said. "Every game is a new game. We can't look what happened. You have to look at what's ahead."
The Big Green will battle Hartford at 3:30 p.m. on Chase Fields Wednesday.
